Blogs, personality and the hiring process...

Blogs, personality and the hiring process...

Wendell Williams, in his recent writing on “Incorporating Personality Into the Hiring Process” , discusses the connection between personality traits and performance (and therefore hiring). Much of the article is about personality testing (I'll share my opinions about this some other time but in short, I think that people often decide personality test answers based on the person that they want to be versus the person that they are...just my .02). Wendell says “ <attitudes, interests and motivations> do not define an applicant's planning, cognitive, or interpersonal skills; they identify how the applicant uses them.“ This is absolutely relevant to how well a person performs in their job. Here's the relevance to some blog-related topics we have been discussing here:

If personality tests are a manufactured and controlled measure of personality (as Wendell describes it, “attitudes, interests and motivations“), aren't blogs a free form version of the same? Granted, they are under the control of the individual, but frankly, so are personality test answers. Aren't blogs a tool to show the world (including potential employers, partners and customers) who you really are...your true personality?

I've seen lots of discussion here and elsewhere about what blogging can mean for your career. Wendell talks about some of the traits that employers look for (or look out for). These vary somewhat by employer and between you an me, there's a certain “self-centeredness” that goes along with blogging so I'd take that one with a grain of salt (I do know people that don't blog because they don't want to talk about themselves...I obviously don't have a problem with it). But it does give you some things to be mindful of...just know that if an employer did find your blog, they could draw some conclusions about you based on how you talk about team working situations or how you discuss and solve problems or your passion for things inside and outside of the workplace. I wouldn't suggest that you manufacture a persona based on these things, though. At the end of the say, what you put out there is the google world's view of you so it pays to be your best you.